Remove Hurdles to Cancer Care

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Access to Health Care

COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the significant barriers to affordable health care that cancer patients have long faced. While relief packages and proposals to date have worked to address affordability of COVID-specific testing and treatment, policymakers must also tackle hurdles that cancer patients face like removing the red tape of prior authorization and step therapy, reducing out-of-pocket costs, and ensuring cost-sharing assistance directly benefits patients. There has been a great deal of research and investment in effective therapies that allow people fighting cancer to survive and live longer. Cancer patients need Congress to act quickly to remove hurdles to quality care.

56% of cancer patients and survivors are worried about being able to afford their treatment

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25 Patient and Provider Groups Applaud Supreme Court Ruling though Express Concern about Other Plaintiffs Keeping FDA Authority Challenge Alive

June 13, 2024

Our 25 organizations, representing patients with serious health conditions and disabilities and their providers, applaud the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling reversing the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine et al. v FDA et al, on the grounds that the plaintiffs don’t have standing in their challenge concerning the

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Proposed Rule is Important Step in Reducing Devastating Impact of Medical Debt

June 11, 2024
National

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a proposed rule today to lessen the impact of medical debt on an individual’s credit.

Survey Finds Majority of Cancer Patients and Survivors Have or Expect to Incur Medical Debt

May 9, 2024
National

Nearly half (49%) of cancer patients and survivors report being burdened by medical debt alongside some (13%) who report expecting to incur medical debt as part of their treatment plan, according to a new Survivor Views survey by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN).

ACS CAN Applauds FDA’s Rule on Laboratory Developed Test Regulation

April 29, 2024
National

Today, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized a new rule regulating laboratory developed tests (LDTs) that will harmonize oversight for diagnostic tests regardless of whether tests are performed in individual laboratories or sold as prepackaged kits.

Remove Hurdles to Cancer Care Resources

Medical Debt and Cancer

May 9, 2024

Medical debt impacts many people with cancer, their caregivers and their families. This factsheet details this impact and explores policy solutions to prevent medical debt and minimize its impact on health, quality of life and financial health.

Addressing Cancer Disparities in LGBTQ+ Communities

March 20, 2024

A critical factor for eliminating disparities and ensuring health equity is the guarantee that all people have access to quality, affordable health care.

Medicare’s Six Protected Classes Explained

November 14, 2023

In 2003, Congress passed the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), which created an outpatient prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program. Known as Part D, the prescription benefit is operated exclusively through private insurance plans that contract with Medicare. To ensure that beneficiaries have coverage for the drugs they need Part D plans are required to cover at least two drugs in each therapeutic class. A therapeutic class is a group of medications that are used to treat the same condition.